Adventures of Huckleberry Finn By: Mark Twain

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Adventures of Huckleberry FinnBy Mark Twain

• Background Information

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What is satire?

• Satire is the use of irony or sarcasm to denounce
  or make fun of a specific idea, object, concept,
  or person.
• Mark Twain uses satire to
• make fun of a very serious subject, slavery
• point out flaws in human nature
• to point out social ills that Twain saw at the
  time.

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Who is Mark Twain?

• Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Langhorne
  Clemens.
• Before becoming a writer, he held a variety of
  odd jobs including piloting a steamboat up and
  down the Mississippi River.
• He was licensed as a steamboat pilot in 1859 and
  worked on the river until fighting there during
  the Civil War ended traffic traveling from north
  to south.
• His experiences along the river helped him come
  up with his pen name, Mark Twain.

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How did Twain get his pseudonym?

• In 1863, when Clemens was 27, he wrote a humorous
  travel story and decided to sign his name "Mark
  Twain." This name comes from something shouted by
  crewmen on a boat.
• To test the depth of the water, a crewman shouts
  "mark twain!" The crewman is calling for two
  fathoms, or a depth of 12 feet, which is barely
  enough for a boat to navigate safely.
• "Twain" is an old-fashioned way of saying "two"
  and a fathom is six feet. "Mark Twain" is a "pen
  name" in the same way that many people in show
  business use a "stage name."

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What is the setting of Huck Finn?

• Time Before the Civil War roughly 18351845
  Twain said the novel was set forty to fifty years
  before the time of its publication
• Place The Mississippi River town of St.
  Petersburg, Missouri various locations along the
  river through Arkansas

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What is a major focus of Huck Finn?

• Slavery degraded the moral fabric of life
• Struggle against societies standards and
  expectations
• Intellectual and moral education
• Hypocrisy of civilized society

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What elements are necessary in an American
Romance (1851-1875)?

• 1. No geographic limitations
• 2. Mingling of Races immigrants in large
  numbers were arriving to the United States
• 3. Growth of industrialization division of north
  and south north becomes industrialized, south
  remains agricultural.

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What was Twains original intention in writing
Huck Finn?

• He wanted to share his philosophy of society and
  culture at the present time.
• Twain makes a social commentary about the
  injustices of society, as well as how people were
  treating each other unjustly.
• Twain is convinced that slavery is filled with
  shame.

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Why does the main characters name seem out of
place?

• A huckleberry is a wild, dark blue berry which
  resembles the blueberry.
• Huckleberries have hard seeds in the center and a
  thicker skin than the blueberry
• Usually found in the eastern and northern parts
  of the United States

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Dialect in Huck Finn

• Representing the living speech of Twains day,
  the following examples of the seven dialects
  typify a uniqueness of language found in the
  areas along the Mississippi River.
• Missouri Negro Jim Goodness gracious, is dat
  you, Huck? En you ain dead-you aint
  drownded-yous back agin? Its too good for
  true, honey, its too good for true. Lemme look
  at you chile, lemme feel o you. No, you ain
  dead! yous back agin, live en soun, jis de
  same ole Huck-de same ole Huck, thanks to
  goodness!
• Extremist form of the backwoods Southwestern
  dialect Arkansas Gossips (Sister Hotchkiss)
  Look at that-air grindstone, sI want to tell
  met any cretur ts in his right minds a-goin
  to scrabble all them crazy things onto a
  grindstone? sI.

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Dialect cont

• Ordinary Pike County Huck My folks was living
  in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born,
  and they all died off but me and pa and my
  brother Ike.
• Modified Pike County Thief on the Sir Walter
  Scott, Jake Packard Im unfavorable to killin a
  man as long as you can git aroun it, it aint
  good sense, it aint good morals. Aint I right?
  
• Modified Pike County King Well, Id ben
  a-runnin a little temperence revival thar bout
  a week . . . and business a-growin all the time,
  when somehow or another a little report got
  around last night that I had a way of puttin in
  my time with a private jug on the sly.

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Dialect cont.

• Modified Pike County Bricksville Loafers
  Gimme a chaw v tobacker, Hank.
• Caint I haint got but one chaw left. Ask
  Bill.
• Modified Pike County Aunt Sally and Uncle
  Silas Phelps Good-ness gracious! she says,
  what in the world can have become of him?
• I cant imagine, says the old gentleman and I
  must say it makes me dreadful uneasy.